Never Given a Chance
by kaitlin.perkins42
Summary: Victor was not given the opportunity to show anyone how much he cared for Henry and it's too late now. Sort of. Maybe. Maybe not... slashy...


Title: Never a Chance  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: All of the characters found within belong to Mary Shelly etc., etc. No profit is being made.  
A/N: When I read Frankenstein (Mary Shelly's original version of the 1800s) I thought that Henry Clerval and Victor should be a set. Today, I saw a musical version of the Frankenstein. The events with in the story were quite similar other than the fact that Mrs. Frankenstein dies while choking on a bone (not in childbirth), William is an adopted orphan (not the last child of Caroline), Victor's father dies soon after Mrs. Frankenstein, and finally, in the end of the play, Victor is put in an insane asylum and makes peace with his creature instead of dying in vain. This rekindled my thoughts and my friend encouraged me to write. My story is not affected by the differences, as it focuses mainly on Victor and Henry's past together, before the death of Henry. I've written the story in a modern style. Sorry if that's annoying…Hopefully, the set up will explain itself (I hope it's a little confusing at first). If by the end of it, you're still confused, please let me know and I'll be happy to clear up the time-line.

* * *

Victor's lungs collapsed in on themselves as he ran his fingers over the pale lips of his friend, his partner, his lover. Blue met a hot, burning pink and he brushed them for one last time, wishing he could bring him back. But were he to bring him back, the man he loved may hate him as much as the creature that had committed this crime. His fingers trembled stiffly at the thought, and he tried to remember better times. Times when blood pumped through this man's body, times when these lips smiled, those fingers caressed, that body swayed sweat bucked beat.

"_Henry?"  
_"_Yes?" He rolled over in the bed, the sheets mussed from his tossing and turning in the night, "What is it Victor?" The larger of the two boys looked at his friend: small, and fragile in the door way, his robe hanging loosely off of his frame, frowning in the flickering glow of a candle flame.  
_"_I…can I come in?"  
_"_Of course." Henry adjusted the bedding and watched as his friend walked over to the bed, dropping his house coat on the floor in a pool, around his feet. His night shirt was a stained white color, and Henry had the irresistible odd heart-fluttering sick-stomach urge to rip off the garment. He grabbed onto Victor and blew out the candle. The smoky smell filled his nostrils and seeped into Victor's scent as his hands wrapped around a small, shaking waist. "Whatever happened?"  
_"_I had a horrible dream, Henry."  
_"_And what was it about, my friend?" he asked, petting the sticky hair back from Victor's forehead, and breathing lightly into his ear.  
__Victor shuddered in his arms and sighed heavily. "Oh, Henry, it was awful. There was a monster, neither man nor beast, who plagued me and followed me everywhere, and ruined everything I held dearest to my heart. I should like to forget the entire ordeal immediately."  
__Henry's fingers danced over his skin, breath filtering between the two boys as they pretended to sleep and ignore the sweat between their bodies, one butted up against the other, sheets useless in the boiling, sensuous moment. Victor tried to think of Lucy, but his mind continuously jumped to Henry, and Henry held Victor closer, under the quite false pretense of comforting him._

"He's quite lovely looking, isn't he?" Victor smiled down at the unmoving Henry, not seeing the face of the man as he was now, but instead preferring to see him as he was just a day ago, alive and thriving.  
"Um…Lovely, sir?" The coroner stood uncomfortably in the corner of the room, grimacing at the sentimental touch that was meant for a private room. It wasn't often that the man accused of the murder touched the victim so softly, so tenderly, so lovingly.  
"Yes. I've never seen a face quite as wonderful as Henry's. It's been a part of my life for so long, I think it will take a long while for my mind to convince itself that he's truly gone."  
"Wonderful?" He wrung out his rag, ignoring the spatter of blood as it fell to the filthy floor, the stench of death long since had stopped bothering the older man, who stood in the morgue, covered in blood and some amount of tissue that wasn't his.  
"Wonderful. Lovely. Beautiful. All of these words cannot attempt to encompass the man that is my Henry."

"_But I'd really rather you didn't leave for Ingolstadt."  
_"_I must, Henry," Victor said, lowering his body onto Henry's, feeling muscle twisting beneath him as he groaned: a guttural noise that tore its way out of his throat, ripping the flesh to knock out his teeth and fall in a gloopy puddle on Henry's sweating face. Henry's dexterous hands wrapped around Victor's waist, calluses burning through his tender stomach flesh before Henry moved a hand and placed it over his head, pressing against the wall while Victor drove into him.  
_"_I want you to stay!"  
_"_I do too…" Victor drooled his words, they bubbled thickly out of his mouth and pooled behind his lover's head, a mess of want and need and promise. His hands couldn't steady him as he shook and moaned, his head careening straight up so his friend could see the underside of his chin, and Henry reached up, crying out quietly, to pet the velvet skin that never needed to be shaven. _

"_Your _Henry?"  
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Victor spun around to look at the doctor, unaware that his daydreams had led to an unfortunate confession.  
"Nothing. Nothing at all, sir." Best not to anger an alleged killer.  
Best not to anger a man in love with another man.  
Best not to anger a man who had allegedly killed the man he loved.

"_You're to marry Lucy whence we return?" Henry sat on the edge of the bed in their room in the inn, his head in his hands and his back arched sadly.  
_"_Well, yes. I do love her."  
_"_But only as a sister, you swore to me, Victor!"  
_"_I know this," he said, ceasing his pacing and putting a hand on his partner's shoulder, "But I must act as though I love her as I love you. I must please my father."  
_"_And me?"  
_"_I will always love you, Henry." Victor bent on one knee so he was eye level with Henry. "More than anyone else, I will always cherish you." He pressed his lips strongly to Henry's, making the kiss long and passionate, giving him in a lone kiss what he could never give him in life._

He would never be given the chance.


End file.
